unity-design team mailing list archive

[Gregory Merchan <gregory.merchan@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 4:11 AM, Gabriel Pettier
<gabriel.pettier@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> For now, about everyone seems to hate metro, it was probably a very bad idea
> from them, i don't think we should copy it in any way… useful or not, people
> love having a deskop.

We travel in different worlds. I've seen different people using Metro
UIs and they all like them.

There is still a desktop in Windows 8. It's scarcely different from
that of Windows 7.

The Start screen, which has replaced the Start menu, is basically
Microsoft's version of Apple's Mac OS X Mission Control, Dashboard,
Launchpad, and Notification center all rolled into one; or of Ubuntu
Unity's Dash, Indicators, and Launchers; or whatever the transient
overlaying overview of GNOME 3 is.

The big difference in Metro (or whatever they choose to call it) looks
to be that they will have more apps that are expected to run
full-screen with far less chrome. Apple guidelines may also be pushing
full-screen; I haven't looked lately. GNOME 3 is sort of doing this
with their series of poorly named applications, but let me just say
I've not been impressed by what I've seen.

I'm not sure about this, but I think Microsoft is actually making the
Start screen into the starting screen for computer interaction. I
think the computer is supposed to go there when you log in or unlock
the screen. That with a bit of extra hardware makes for some
interesting things.

I suspect that some of the objections to the Start screen in Windows 8
comes from how a menu feels different from a full-screen overlay.
Because it has to cover so much area, the overlay "feels" heavier,
although from using it I have to say that it only looks like it will
feel that way when you see screenshots of it. Actually using it feel
just as "light" as using a menu, if not lighter because it's less
cramped.

More important for Microsoft than any particular design choice is that
they've actually started making design choices. They are encouraging
the same attention to design that has long be de rigueur on a Mac. I
think we tried to do this with GNOME 2, but were severely hampered by
the general chaos of open source development and the number of
assumptions about how things have to be. GNOME and KDE have taken so
much mindshare now that the interesting, more experimental projects
have been starved. Maybe I just miss the late 1990's.

Cheers.